| Summary: | South West Archaeology Ltd. (SWARCH) was commissioned the South Molton Rugby Club (the Client) to undertake an archaeological excavation prior to the creation of a new rugby pitch on land adjacent to Alswear Road, South Molton, North Devon. This work was undertaken in fulfilment of a planning condition, and follows on from a programme of geophysical survey (Bampton 2015) and evaluation trenching (Webb 2015). The archaeological excavation was carried out as part of a HLF-funded community project which involved members of the community and local school children in the excavation, post-excavation processing and other archaeologically-themed activities.
The work identified and excavated a total of 46 features, including ditches, gullies, pits and postholes, that reflect the Prehistoric and historic use of the site. The pottery indicates activity as early as the Bronze Age, although the principal features are all likely to date to the Iron Age, with early medieval re-use of an enclosure. Towards the centre of the site was a small and truncated probable settlement consisting of a single roundhouse built into the side of an oval enclosure with an entrance to the south-west side. This type of structure – with the roundhouse built into and integral to the enclosure – appears to be unique. The roundhouse appears to have been rebuilt a number of times. Associated with the site was a probable six-post structure, likely to pre-date the roundhouse and enclosure, and a scatter of pits, likely to be contemporary with the settlement. The very small amount of South West Decorated pottery, supported by a programme of C14 dating, indicates the site was occupied during the Middle Iron Age. At the south-east corner of the site a small but strongly-defended enclosure was sampled. Its ditch was 3.65m across and 2m deep and one section was re-cut at least once. This re-cut was radiocarbon dated to the early medieval period and joins a very small number of identified sites that were occupied or used during that period. The other features encountered on the site included a section of curving ditch with postholes and several curving parallel ditches. |
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